


Melt

by rhincoln



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Cold Weather, Fluff, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Mistletoe, Teenagers, rhink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 23:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8943883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhincoln/pseuds/rhincoln
Summary: It’s the dead of winter and nearly the dead of night when Rhett and Link sneak out, determined to escape their parents and spend at least a little bit of Christmas together.





	

**Author's Note:**

> bad things are happening where i live and there’s little i can do about that. but u know where there’s no bad things? chirstmas eve circa 1994 in buies creek NC. 
> 
> hope y’all like this one.
> 
> plus! a note; snirt = snow + dirt

Link wants to see Rhett on Christmas, so Rhett tells him that he will.

When Rhett decides and tells him this, it’s the last day of school, and Link is leaning against Rhett’s car in the school parking lot with Rhett looming over him.   
  
“Don’t wanna wait till New Year’s to see you,” Link grumbles, and Rhett smiles.    
  
“Well, it’s your dad’s fault,” Rhett says, shrugging his shoulders, though he’s still smiling. Link doesn’t understand how he could still be smiling. “The man’s a monster, taking his son on a snowboarding trip to bond with him,” Rhett teases.

 

Link grumbles out something akin to a “yeah” and averts his gaze, rubbing the tip of his shoe into the thin coat of snow on the ground. The snow, which has just started to fall and has barely dusted the parking lot, is chilling Link down to the bone, but he’s not about to say anything about it. He wants to savour these last few moments of Rhett’s company before they are inevitably separated for the holidays.   
  
Link looks up, folding his arms across his chest. “It’s your mom who’s always like,  _ Christmas is for the family,” _ Link says, and then lets out a small sigh which instantly freezes in the air. “Wish Christmas was for friends. Then I could give you your present on the right day.”

 

Rhett makes a show of raising his eyebrows, and Link holds his eye-roll for after Rhett speaks.   
  
“You got me something?” Rhett asks, voice quiet.   
  
Link rolls his eyes. “As if you didn’t get me anything.”   
  
“Thought you said you’d save money for that road-trip we agreed on,” Rhett says, smile creeping back into his voice.   
  
Link shrugs. “I’ll just mow some extra lawns before the Summer, I guess.”   
  
“Well, you don’t leave till after Christmas,” Rhett says, looking down as he speaks nonchalantly, “If you wanna hang out on Christmas, I can sneak out after my parents turn in. Take the Omega and all, come get you.”   
  
Link’s heart flutters with excitement, but he gruffs himself up, not letting it show. “Where would we go?”    
  
Rhett shrugs. “We’ll think of something.”   
  
Link nods, looking up at Rhett with a steadily widening smile. Rhett smiles back, and reaches one hand down to open the car door for Link.   
  
“C’mon,” Rhett says, almost bashfully, “It’s cold.”   
  
—

 

And then, before they can blink, it’s Christmas Eve. Link’s a little less fond of his best friend now, when he’s standing out on his porch, waiting for him in the cold. But just after Link’s fourth-or-so full-body shiver, his love in Rhett is instantly restored when he sees the all-familiar headlights at the end of the street. As Rhett drives up and Link crosses the distance of his snow-covered lawn to wait for the car, the thought that it could really be no other car but Rhett’s crosses his mind. Only him and Rhett would be crazy enough to do this, Link thinks, and he _ loves _ it.

 

When Link finally gets into the car, rubbing his gloved hands together to warm them up, Rhett turns the stereo down and looks at him with a smile.   
  
“You ready?” he asks, and Link instantly nods.   
  
Link’s giddy with excitement, and lets out a short laugh. “We’re waitin’ for Christmas,” Link says, still unable to believe it just a tiny bit. After a few days of long telephone discussions, they’d agreed that this was the best way for them to spend at least some of Christmas together. The early hours of Christmas count as much as the rest of it, if not more. It takes a certain amount of dedication to stay up in the cold, even if Link couldn’t see himself doing anything else. 

 

Rhett nods and backs the car up onto Link’s driveway to turn it around. It’s the first winter since Rhett has got his driver’s licence, and he pulls out onto the road with extraordinary care. Even if Link knows Rhett would never admit to being careful, he drives slowly, the snow that crunches under his tires giving in easily and revealing a thin, albeit dark-grey layer of ice. It’s dangerous. Link doesn’t complain about his slow driving — they don’t need to die, now, when he finally feels like they’ve started living. 

 

“Your parents asleep?” Rhett asks, gaze flicking from the road to Link for a shorter amount of time than he’d perhaps usually allow it to, due to the snow that rises with the wind everywhere around them.

 

Link confirms it, and retaliates with the same question. To which Rhett tells him that his mom had been cooking all day and his dad and brother have already chipped off a bit of the Christmas feast, except for the bird, which Diane would cook in the morning. All of this contributed to all of them being tired and so in bed early, and according to Rhett, they are heavy sleepers. Link figured as much, if they weren’t able to sleep through a bit of commotion, Rhett wouldn’t have the pleasure of making his specialty — the Cheese Disk — so often. 

 

Rhett covers his mouth with a hand when he heaves a small yawn, and Link can’t help but to think that Rhett has gotten his fingers on some of the Christmas cookies, at the least.

 

“You hungry?” Link asks, half-teasing, but then realises his mistake: even if Rhett had partook in the tasting of the next day’s feast, he would, being Rhett, probably still be hungry.

 

“Yeah,” Rhett says, nodding. “We’re lucky the kebab shop’s open, man.”

  
Since it’s around ten p.m. on Christmas Eve, only one food place in town is open.   
  
Link laughs a little, “Yeah. Thank God for people of different religions.” 

 

It’s not a long drive to the centre of Buies Creek, it being as tiny as it is. And with Rhett responding slowly and losing his train of thought many times as he carefully navigates the darkened, cold streets, there’s not a lot of conversation before Rhett is pulling up to the curb in front of a launderette, a little bit further down from the usually-bustling centre of town, where there’s no parking metres. Because you can never be too safe — and it’s not like Link minds it. In fact, as they quietly exit the car and walk side-by-side down the street, Link can’t help but smile to himself, because everything is so nice. Everything, and how Rhett looks in the middle of that everything. 

 

The dim orange light of the lamps brings out the very dark purple in the sky, and the soft, evergreen glow of Rhett’s eyes. Snow is falling around them softly, their shoes squeaking when they tread the frozen ground. Here and there, there’s the faint, colourful flicker of Christmas lights. There’s tiny glowing lights everywhere, in the colours the shops and houses are decked in and the small snowflakes which dance in the air around them. Link follows them with his gaze, only for his gaze to land on Rhett. Rhett’s cheeks, patted down with him growing out of puberty, are smooth, much unlike the remains of childish chubbiness in Link’s cheeks; the pale skin there is stained red with the cold, something that does match Link’s own cheeks perfectly.

 

Link tears his gaze away from Rhett and lets it roam over the street, where everything is covered in an even blanket of snow. In a small Christian town at a night like this, there’s no car tires to cut through the snow. Rhett seems to notice the same thing.   
  
“‘s nice. No snirt,” Rhett comments. 

 

Link grins, nodding. His eyes skid over the darkened windows of the shops, which are glistening with a thin layer of frost, and settle on the windows of the kebab shop — which are bright, the yellow walls and red linoleum inside seemingly warming the entire street up. 

  
Rhett leads the way inside and Link follows, slippery shoes sticking to the lino. Link is instructed to sit down by Rhett, and takes the booth right up against the window, so that he can look outside at the streets that glisten with snow. Rhett comes to sit down across from him when he’s ordered for them, and Link takes another moment to observe him. Rhett’s shaky, his legs jittering, sitting in the booth halfway turned to Link and halfway turned toward the counter, where their food would be placed any moment now.

 

Link smiles, looking away when he thinks Rhett might notice him staring. He looks around the shop — it’s a Christmas blessing that there’s people who don’t celebrate Christmas. To Rhett and Link, as well as the few other people — an elderly couple and a group of seemingly-drunk college kids who occupy the kebab shop.    
  
“This is cool,” Link can’t help but voice what he’s been thinking all day, even if he thinks it a bit lame to voice it.   
  
Rhett only smirks. “I know. We should sneak away more often.”   
  
Link mirrors the smirk. “We could run away,” he offers.

 

Rhett laughs, turning to fully face Link. “We could.”   
  
“No worries about college then,” Link says, “We could just go to any college we wanted.”   
  


“Film school,” Rhett muses, speaking as if about a faraway dream.   
  
Link parrots to confirm it, “Film school.”   
  
Rhett’s quiet for a moment. “You can still go,” he says casually, shrugging, and Link scrunches up his face in disdain.  _ Not likely. _   
  
“Wouldn’t be worth it without you,” Link says simply, because it is simple for him, and he’s told Rhett a myriad times before.    
  
Rhett looks at him for a little while, so long that Link squirms under his gaze, and is forced to ask, “What?”   
  
Rhett scratches his jaw a little. “When you say stuff like that, it’s just so…” he trails off, and seemingly can’t find the words to express what he’s thinking. Link waits for him to finish his thought, when Rhett turns to the counter to see that their food is ready. He stands up to get it swiftly and pays for the both of them, and then violently refuses any money Link offers him, insisting that it’s his treat.

 

Once Rhett’s sat down and bitten into his kebab, Link can’t seem to bring up the conversation from just a minute ago, even if he really wants to. 

 

And even though they’ve just started eating, Link has to ask. “So, where to after this?” Because the  _ after-dinner _ was part of the plan they never really developed. 

 

Rhett takes a moment to swallow his bite. “We could go take a walk in the park. If we go right to the centre of it we might get away with throwing some firecrackers. Got some in the car. They’re supposed to be for New Year’s, but it’s not gonna be as fun on New Year’s, since I’ll probably have to throw them with Cole. I mean, if you don’t wanna do that, we could just walk around, but... I don’t know, I didn’t expect it to be this cold.”   
  
Link nods, thinking it over. “We could go to mine,” he offers, “Have some hot chocolate or something. You could see the tree, my mom and I went all out this year.”   
  
Rhett laughs, nodding his head. “Yeah, alright. No need to sell me the house, ‘course I wanna go.”   
  
Link grins. “Nice,” he says quietly, and tries to focus on eating. Of course he can’t, as he is eager to talk to Rhett as much as he can. “So what are you gonna be doing while I’m away, except for throwing firecrackers?” 

 

“You make it sound like I barely have a life when you’re not around,” Rhett teases, making Link’s face heat up.   
  
“Sorry,” Link says, and Rhett laughs.   
  
“Didn’t say you were wrong,” he says, blushing a little himself. “Um. Probably gonna be earnin’ some of that roadtrip—” here Rhett stops himself and snickers, “sorry —  _ runaway _ — money. Shovelin’ snow. Otherwise, I guess... eatin’. Avoidin’ Cole. The regular stuff.”   
  
Link nods, giggling. “Those your New Year’s resolutions, too?  _ Eat more food, avoid more Cole?” _   
  
Rhett is quiet for a moment. He casts his eyes down to his food, but doesn’t go to take a bite. “More or less,” he says quietly, and then looks back up at Link.   
  
“Oh?” Link squeezes out, not wanting to deter anything Rhett was about to say by speaking himself.    
  


“There’s some things I’ve been wantin’ for a while,” he says slowly. “But you know how it is with New Year’s resolutions,” he gives a sad smile that Link wishes to squeeze off his face with a few friendly pats on the back. “I always kinda… Chicken out.”   
  
Link grins. “Tabitha?” he asks knowingly. 

 

Rhett looks like he wants to say something for a moment, but then just nods, confusing Link a little. Link thought he’d be more enthusiastic talking about it, especially since it’s not long until the girl falls for Rhett. They always do, eventually, especially if Rhett tries a little.

  
Once Link snaps out of his thoughts, he notices that Rhett has already scarfed his meal down. Link rushes to finish his own, which is not a feat — he’s eager to go home, to speak with Rhett some more. The later it gets, the more alone they are, the easier the secrets come out, and Link has always liked knowing Rhett’s secrets.   
  
There’s something secretive about the Tabitha thing, and as Rhett changes the topic to all the food his mom has prepared for Christmas, Link silently decides he’ll get to the bottom of it. 

 

—   
  
“Good thinkin’,” Rhett says absent-mindedly, as they get out onto the street, “To go to your house. It’s gonna be warm there. And I could do with a cup of hot chocolate.”

 

Link nods, grimacing a little. “Thanks, yeah, um. Me too. Also, I kinda forgot your gift at home, so—”   
  
Rhett laughs, all loud and hearty, and Link can’t keep the grin off his face. Rhett looks down at him, shaking his head fondly, and then reaches over to wrap his arm around Link’s shoulders in a side-hug.

 

It’s a weird thought, but one Link gets nonetheless: he wants to melt into Rhett like the snowflakes that land on Rhett’s beanie. 

 

—   
  
They’re barely out of their cold, wet jackets and hats when Link rushes into the kitchen, and then comes back into the hallway while Rhett’s still untying his shoes. 

 

“You want me to heat it up on the stove?” Link asks, holding up a small, red with white polka dots pot in one hand, and a carton of milk in the other. 

 

“What?” Rhett asks, looking between Link and the items he’s holding.    
  
“The microwave might be loud, and my mom’s asleep.” Link explains, and Rhett straightens up, having taken his shoes off.    
  
“I’d rather you not burn the house down,” Rhett says with a shit-eating grin and takes the milk out of Link’s hand. “C’mon,” he says, leading the way back to the kitchen. “We’ll just intercept the beep from the microwave.”   
  


Link agrees and sets two mugs down onto the counter, and Rhett pours the milk into them. Link puts them in the microwave, which he sets to three minutes — he wants the milk piping hot — before leaning against the counter.    
  
Rhett’s standing in front of him, arms crossed over his chest, and Link feels like he has to make conversation.    
  


“So, what do you want for Christmas?” Link asks, “like, what do you really want, if you could have anything?” 

  
Rhett scrunches his eyebrows up for a moment, but then answers. “Wanna be famous,” he says, smirking. 

 

Link nods, impatient. “Okay, but, like. Something that could happen this Christmas.”   
  
Rhett looks up for a moment, pursing his lips in thought. “I don’t know. Okay, I guess this is kinda corny, but I always wanted to kiss someone under the mistletoe.”

  
Link takes a moment to see if Rhett is being serious, and then starts thinking about how Rhett could go about making that happen. The thought makes Link’s stomach churn, and he’s not sure what to make of that. In any case, though — if Rhett wasn’t allowed to see him at Christmas, could it even be possible that he was allowed to see a girl? The alternative wouldn’t have made sense, since it would mean Rhett wanted to kiss one of his cousins, or something.

  
There’s also something else that’s bugging Link. “You can do that whenever.”

  
“It’s gotta be Christmas if it’s gonna be mistletoe.”   
  
Link hums thoughtfully before speaking. “Didn’t know that was part of the tradition.”

  
Before Rhett can answer, and Link can see that he was going to with the way he opened his mouth, Link walks over to the entrance to the foyer and plucks a bit of mistletoe off. He swiftly walks back, and presents it to Rhett.

  
“There. Carry it with ya, maybe you’ll meet a nice girl if your mom sends you out to get the bakin’ powder or somethin’. Could come in handy,” he says with a shrug. Ever so gently, Rhett plucks the flower out of his hand and looks at it, corner of his mouth tilting up in a lopsided smile.

  
Rhett snorts. “So, what — I just come up to a girl I don’t know, like—” he steps closer to Link, almost crowding him against the counter.    
Rhett takes the flower and turns it in his hand, looks right into Link’s eyes, and then raises the mistletoe up a little, and then a little more, almost above Link’s head. 

And then the microwave beeps violently, and they’re both left standing there for a second, and Link’s getting this feeling in his chest like he’s halfway through running a marathon. 

 

Rhett brings his hand down but stands there unmoving while Link scrambles to open the microwave door.

  
“Could you get the marshmallows?” Link asks over his shoulder as he’s getting the mugs out, burning his hands a little. His cheeks burn worse, though, and he can barely look at Rhett. Which is weird, since it’s not like anything happened. Not like Rhett was gonna lean in and kiss him, even if the rules of mistletoe demand so. 

 

Rhett gets the marshmallows and Link gets the chocolate powder, and then the chocolate syrup, and then some chocolate shavings left over from his mother making a cake, for good measure. By the time the glorious concoction is done and they’ve each got a mug in hand, things are almost back to normal. Link takes a sip of his hot chocolate before leading the way up to his room. 

 

As they climb the stairs and cross the hallway to get into the half-dark of Link’s room, Link whispers an explanation-slash-apology to Rhett: if his mom sees a light in the room, she’ll be more inclined to come in and ask why he’s not asleep. So they keep the light off.

  
Any light in the room is provided from the outside, the glow of street lamps and Christmas lights. The neighbours across the street decked their house in red ones — Link can see the faint blinking of them in his room, on Rhett’s face. 

Link sits down on the edge of the bed and Rhett sits about two feet away from him, not that Link’s counting.    
  
“Kinda warm in here,” Rhett says, thumbing at the hem of his jumper. Link can’t agree, still frozen from their time outside, clutching his warm mug to his chest in between sips. He doesn’t say a word, just looks at Rhett as he visibly debates with himself whether to take his jumper off or not.    
Eventually, Rhett takes his jumper off to reveal a pale pink t-shirt, which could be white and only look tinted in the soft lights of the night, Link’s not sure. Link’s not sure why he’s looking, either. He is sure that Rhett’s shirt is just an undershirt, though, with how tight it is, totally  _ démodé. _ Rhett would never step out looking like that. Which is not to say that Link doesn’t like the way it looks on him. He even finds himself liking the way he can trace the smallest tightening of the muscles in Rhett’s chest, his abdomen, or his biceps.   
  
Rhett folds his jumper up and throws it onto Link’s chair, and looks pleased at how perfectly it lands there, being an avid basketball player and all. Link almost rolls his eyes. 

  
Instead, Link sets his mug down onto his nightstand and props up a pillow against the headboard. He sits there, stretching his legs out. Rhett moves down on the bed a little and sits next to Link’s feet, back against the wall and feet hanging off the bed.

  
Rhett laughs, suddenly, and Link shoots him a questioning look.   
  
“Forgot my gift in the car,” Rhett says, shaking his head before taking a sip of his hot chocolate.   
  
Link grins, looking down at his own mug. “It’s fine, we’ll get it later.” The thought of Rhett giving him a gift is making him giddy, and he tries his darndest to calm down.   
  


When Link goes to take another sip from his own mug, Rhett moves up on the bed and reaches over Link to put his mug on the nightstand. When Link looks over into said mug, he notices it’s already empty.  _ Classic Rhett, _ he thinks, almost making himself laugh — he probably would laugh, were he not preoccupied with trying to figure out what Rhett is doing.

  
Rhett moves across the bed and squeezes in between Link and the wall, sighing loudly once he leans back against Link’s pillow.   
  
“That wall is cold,” he says shyly, explaining, “And my back was startin’ to hurt.”   
  
Link tips his hand over a little so the back of it is pressed against the back of Rhett’s own as if to mellow out the teasing when he speaks: “Your back? What are you, sixty five?”

  
Rhett frowns, sitting up straighter against the headboard nervously. “I don’t know, man, ‘s really startin’ to hurt lately. My dad says it’s because I’m growin’ out or somethin’.”

 

“Oh,” Link says, feeling real stupid. “I’m sorry.”

 

Rhett turns his head to face him, grinning. “Don’t sweat it.”   
  
Link looks up at him and gives him a small smile. “You’re not sixty five. You’re six-five.”

 

Rhett nods, smiling, and then casts his eyes down. With the hand that’s not touching Link’s, he reaches down and takes something out of his pocket. When he opens his palm and reveals it as the bit of mistletoe Link had given his earlier, Link’s stomach twists in a recently familiar way. Rhett looks at it and turns it in his fingers, speaking his thoughts out loud.    
  
“Did you know it’s harmful?” 

  
Link swallows, skin prickling in any place his body is pressed against Rhett’s. “Really?” Link chokes out, and Rhett nods, still not meeting his eyes, even if Link’s just downright staring at his face now.

  
“Mhm. And I don’t just mean you could get decked if you try to kiss the wrong person,” Rhett says, huffing out a laugh. “Apparently it’s like, really poisonous.”

 

“Huh…” Link hums, giving Rhett a small smile once Rhett finally looks at him. It’s a nice feeling, warming up with Rhett like this, while the snow falls steadily on outside. 

  
Rhett shifts, and then he’s raising his arm up to rest it on the headboard. Link briefly laments the loss of warmth of Rhett’s hand pressed against his, but then Rhett uses that hand to touch the hair behind Link’s ear. His fingers go through Link’s hair and down his neck a little, and for the first time that night, Link’s shiver is not due to the cold.   
  
Rhett asks, in a soft voice, “You letting it grow out?”   
  
Link gulps, and it takes him more than it should to gather his thoughts on the matter. “Yeah, just a bit,” he brings his hand up to the back of his neck shyly and finds Rhett’s fingers there, in his hair. Like zinged by electricity, he moves his fingers away quickly. “I like it like this,” he says, before his hand slides back down.   
  
“I like it too,” Rhett says, looking at his own fingers in Link’s hair. It’s a pleasant feeling, that of Rhett touching him like that, and Link leans into it. It’s as nice as it is nerve-wracking, and Link has butterflies in his stomach for the first time in a while.    
  
There’s a moment of peaceful silence, and then Link reaches down to take the mistletoe from Rhett’s hand. All the while Rhett strokes his hair, and Link turns his head to look up at him, bashful. He doesn’t feel confident to look at Rhett when he speaks, so he looks down at the flower in his hands. “I think my back’s startin’ to hurt now,” he says slowly, “You wanna lie down?”

  
Rhett nods immediately, so they move to flatten the pillow out and lie down on their backs. It all happens so fast, that Link almost can’t wrap his head around it — but it makes sense, if only for the fact that Rhett owes him something from their time with the mistletoe, back in the kitchen. For a moment, Link’s looking up at the ceiling, but then turns his head to the side to look at Rhett.    
  
Rhett’s already looking back at him, and Link unthinkingly tries to scootch a tad closer to him. Rhett raises himself up on his elbow to hover above Link and tangles his other hand on the other side of Link’s head, in his hair, and leans down a little.   
  
“I can’t wait for Christmas,” Rhett says, eyes roaming over Link’s face, making it heat up.

  
Reaching up with his hand to touch Rhett’s waist, Link looks down at Rhett’s lips and then back up at his eyes. “Then don’t,” Link says, sliding his hand up until he can tug at Rhett’s shirt.

  
Tugging at Link’s hair a little, Rhett kisses him eleven minutes before Christmas, and Link melts into him.

**Author's Note:**

> rhett got link a framed, month-old photo of the two of them, the wooden frame of which link would later decorate with a tiny branch of mistletoe. link got rhett a bottle of eggnog, which was as festive as it was alcoholic, illegal for them to buy or consume, and therefore very hardcore.
> 
>  
> 
> — thank you for reading and have happy holidays! <3


End file.
